100 Fun Facts About Of Mice and Men

Who wrote Of Mice and Men?

He based it on his own teenage years working alongside migrant farm workers.

In what year was Of Mice and Men published?

It came two years before The Grapes of Wrath.

What is Lennie's surname?

The irony is deliberate: he is a huge man with wide, sloping shoulders.

What is George's surname?

Steinbeck describes him as quick and defined, with restless eyes and a thin, bony nose.

What animals does Lennie dream of tending on the farm?

He loves soft things but pets them so hard he kills them.

Which town did George and Lennie flee before the story begins?

Lennie had grabbed a young woman's dress and would not let go, and a lynch mob formed.

The ranch is near which California town, whose name means solitude in Spanish?

Steinbeck used the name to reinforce the theme of loneliness.

Which poem supplied the title Of Mice and Men?

Burns is said to have composed it after his plough destroyed a mouse's nest at Mossgiel Farm.

Who wrote the poem that gave the novella its title?

He wrote it in Scots in 1785, reportedly while still holding his plough.

What was Steinbeck's original title for the novella?

He meant that nobody could really be blamed for the tragedy.

What happened to an early draft of the manuscript?

The pup made confetti of about half the book one night.

What was the name of the pup that destroyed the draft?

Steinbeck said he was not sure the pup's judgement was wrong.

Steinbeck called the book a play-novelette; how is it structured?

He wanted a novel that could be played from its lines, or a play that read like a novel.

Roughly how many words long is the novella?

Steinbeck wanted a novel that could be played from its lines.

Which character has lost a hand and owns an old, blind dog?

He offers his life savings to join the pair on their farm.

How much money does the old swamper offer toward buying the farm?

In return he asks to live with them; the trio expect to buy the farm at the end of the month.

Who shoots the old swamper's dog?

The thick-bodied ranch hand does it with little sympathy.

What is the job of the ranch's prince, the man Curley respects?

He drives the mule team and is the only man Curley treats with respect.

What does Curley keep on his left hand?

The others call him handy, with some irony.

What was Curley's former occupation?

He dislikes larger men and immediately targets Lennie.

How does Lennie injure Curley during their fight?

George urges him on as Lennie defends himself.

How did Steinbeck describe Curley's wife when explaining her role?

The other characters never call her anything but Curley's wife.

What did Curley's wife dream of becoming?

She confesses her loneliness to Lennie in the barn.

How does Curley's wife die?

She offers to let him stroke her hair, then panics at his strength.

Why is Crooks isolated from the other ranch hands?

He gets his name from his crooked back and lives in the stable.

What does Crooks ask to do on the dream farm?

He scorns the dream even as he asks to join it.

What does Lennie accidentally kill the day before Curley's wife dies?

He kills it by stroking it too hard.

Who is the only character who fully understands why George shoots Lennie?

He leads George away to console him while the others look on baffled.

Which bird shifts from scenery to predator by the final chapter?

It returns to prey on curious snakes, symbolising dreams snatched away.

What did Steinbeck say the real Lennie did to a boss who fired his friend?

Steinbeck said the man was sent to an insane asylum, not to jail.

What did Steinbeck call himself when describing his youth to The New York Times in 1937?

The word means a tramp who carries his bedroll, or bindle.

Which organisation chose the novella as a selection before it was even published?

It drew the greatest positive response of any of his works up to that time.

Where did Of Mice and Men rank on the ALA's most banned and challenged books list for 2000–2009?

It was 28th on the list for the following decade.

At which Broadway venue did the 1937 stage version open on 23 November?

It ran for 207 performances, less than nine months after the book came out.

Who played Lennie in the original 1937 Broadway production?

Wallace Ford played George; Chaney took over Lennie in Los Angeles in 1939.

Which award did the stage version win in 1938, before the Tonys existed?

The production opened while the novel was still on best-seller lists.

Who played Lennie in the 1939 film directed by Lewis Milestone?

Burgess Meredith played George; the film earned four Oscar nominations.

Which composer scored the 1939 film?

The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Sound and two music awards.

Who directed and starred as George in the 1992 film?

He and Malkovich had played the roles at Steppenwolf in 1980.

Who played Lennie opposite Sinise in the 1992 film?

The two reprised their 1980 Steppenwolf Theatre roles.

Which actress replaced Bridget Fonda as Curley's wife in the 1992 film?

Horton Foote wrote the screenplay; he had worked with Steinbeck on The Red Pony.

Which composer set the novella to music for the stage in 1970?

His version adds a character not in the book, the Ballad Singer.

Which company premiered Floyd's version on 22 January 1970?

It revived the production for the 1976–77 season.

Who starred as George and Lennie in the 1974 Broadway revival?

Franco and O'Dowd led the 2014 revival at the Longacre.

Which Chicago dance company debuted a version of the novella in 2022?

Cathy Marston created the choreography.

In which year did Steinbeck win the Nobel Prize in Literature?

He was cited for realistic and imaginative writings combining sympathetic humour and keen social perception.

In which California town was Steinbeck born?

Much of his work is set in the Salinas Valley and the Coast Ranges.

Who directed the original 1937 Broadway production of Of Mice and Men?

Produced by Sam H. Harris, it ran for 207 performances before moving to Los Angeles in 1939.

Which two stars led the 2014 Broadway revival at the Longacre Theatre?

Leighton Meester and Jim Norton co-starred in the limited 18-week engagement.

Who played George in the 1939 film adaptation?

Wallace Ford had played George on stage; the film's Lennie came from the Los Angeles stage run and was nominated for four Oscars.

In Of Mice and Men's opening scene, what is Lennie hiding in his coat pocket to stroke as he walks?

A dead mouse is what George makes him hand over twice, the second time hurling it as far as he can into the dusk. Lennie says he only wanted to pet it with his thumb while they walked.

Which condiment does Lennie keep wanting on his beans in Of Mice and Men, though George has none?

Ketchup sets off George's angriest speech, about how easy his life would be alone. A frightened Lennie then swears he would not touch any even if it were right beside him.

What did Lennie grab in the northern town that he and George fled before Of Mice and Men begins?

A girl's dress, a red one, was all he wanted to feel, but he froze and clung on when she screamed. George had to hit him over the head with a fence picket to make him let go.

Where does George tell Lennie to hide if trouble finds him at the ranch in Of Mice and Men?

Brush by the river, at the spot where they camped the night before, is the place George makes him say over and over. It is exactly where George finds him in the final chapter.

Which relative raised Lennie from a baby and scolds him in a vision near the end of Of Mice and Men?

His aunt, Clara, took him in as a baby, and Lennie simply went along with George after she died. She appears as a little fat old woman in thick glasses who speaks in Lennie's own voice.

Which game keeps the ranch hands outside while Lennie talks with Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men?

Horseshoes, in a tournament she calls a 'tenement', has four dollars riding on it, so she is sure nobody will walk in on them. The best pitcher on the ranch is Crooks, the stable hand.

What does Of Mice and Men's old swamper say he should have done when a stranger killed his dog?

He should have shot it himself, he tells George that night, instead of letting a stranger do it. The regret hangs over George's own choice in the last chapter.

What does Curley's wife invite Lennie to stroke in the barn in Of Mice and Men, with fatal results?

Her hair is soft and fine, she boasts, unlike Curley's, which is 'jus' like wire'. When Lennie strokes too hard she jerks away, and in his panic he hangs on.

Curley's wife is the one major figure in Of Mice and Men whom Steinbeck never gives what?

A name of her own never appears: the other characters call her only 'Curley's wife'. Steinbeck later told the actress playing her on stage that her harsh, flirtatious manner was really a defence against fear.

George tells the boss in Of Mice and Men that Lennie is which relative, to explain why he speaks for him?

His cousin is the lie, padded out with a made-up childhood accident. Alone again, George snaps that if he really were a relative of Lennie's he would shoot himself.

Which make of pistol, taken from a ranch hand's bag, does George fire in the final scene of Of Mice and Men?

A Luger first appears when its owner uses it to put down an old, ailing dog. When it later goes missing, the men assume Lennie has stolen it, and Curley tells them to give him no chance.

In Of Mice and Men, the old dog and later Lennie are both shot in exactly which part of the body?

Back of the head is where the dog's killer promises it 'wouldn't even quiver', pointing with his toe. George aims at the same place, and Lennie too settles forward without quivering.

Steinbeck introduces Lennie in Of Mice and Men dragging his feet the way which animal drags its paws?

A bear is the image Steinbeck returns to in the last chapter, where Lennie arrives 'as silently as a creeping bear moves'. In between, his big hands are more than once called paws.

Whom does George blame for the long walk that makes him and Lennie late to the ranch in Of Mice and Men?

A bus driver dropped them miles short, swearing the ranch was 'jes' a little stretch down the highway'. George stretches the walk to ten miles when he repeats the excuse to the boss.

What false story about Curley's injury do the men agree on after the bunkhouse fight in Of Mice and Men?

Caught in a machine is the story Curley must tell, or the whole ranch will hear what really happened and laugh at him. His wife does not believe a word of it: 'Baloney!'

Lennie keeps breaking into George's story in Of Mice and Men to shout that they will live off the what?

Fat of the land, or "the fatta the lan'" as Lennie says it, means a few acres with a cow, some pigs and a vegetable plot. He knows the speech by heart but insists it is not the same unless George tells it.

What do George and Lennie do in Of Mice and Men that the other ranch hands find rare among working men?

Travel together is something hardly any ranch hand does: most arrive alone, work a month and move on alone. The boss finds it so odd that he asks whether George is taking Lennie's pay.

The old verse behind the title Of Mice and Men says the best-laid schemes 'gang aft agley', or often do what?

Go awry is the sense: however carefully mice or men lay their plans, they often fail. Every plan in the book, from buying the farm to keeping Lennie out of trouble, ends that way.

Before Of Mice and Men begins, where did George and Lennie hide all day in water from a mob?

An irrigation ditch hid them with only their heads above water, tucked up under the grass at its edge, while a search party hunted Lennie. After dark they slipped out of the district.

Which grain are George and Lennie hired to load in heavy sacks at the ranch in Of Mice and Men?

Barley is what the men 'buck', hauling the sacks in from the thresher for eleven hours a day. Lennie is so strong at it that he nearly wears out his partner on the first afternoon.

The stable hand Crooks in Of Mice and Men is called that for a crooked back, injured by what?

A horse's kick left his spine bent over to the left, and he rubs liniment into it alone at night. George borrows the same accident for a lie, telling the boss it happened to Lennie as a child.

Kept apart from the other men in Of Mice and Men, the stable hand Crooks has his bunk where?

The harness room, a little shed leaning off the barn, holds his bunk, a long box of straw, with a manure pile under the window. Only the boss and one trusted hand had ever stepped inside.

To which food does Steinbeck compare the tight rolled curls of Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men?

Sausages is the word for the little rolled clusters, and Steinbeck repeats it right up to the moment she lies still in the hay. She first appears with rouged lips, red fingernails and red feathered shoes.

The old swamper in Of Mice and Men insists his blind, toothless dog was once the best what he ever saw?

Sheep dog is his proud answer: he herded with it and has kept it since it was very young. The other men notice only the smell, and one of them keeps pressing him to let it be put down.

In Of Mice and Men, what is the man leading the old dog to its death told to take along?

A shovel is the order, three words from the ranch's most respected hand, so that the dog can be buried. Then the whole bunkhouse waits in silence for the sound of the gun.

Which card game does George propose in Of Mice and Men to break the silence as the men wait for a gunshot?

Euchre is the game, but nobody deals until the gun is heard: George just ripples the deck, and the little snapping noise draws every eye. Left alone, he lays out solitaire in scene after scene.

Whom does Curley's wife suspect of stealing a letter she was waiting for in Of Mice and Men?

Her mother denied it, but the suspicion was enough: she would not stay where her letters were stolen, so she married Curley. The same parent had stopped her joining a travelling show at fifteen.

What does Curley's wife threaten Crooks with in Of Mice and Men when he orders her out of his room?

A lynching is what she means by getting him 'strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny'. Crooks shrinks to nothing and answers only 'Yes, ma'am', and the old swamper admits nobody would listen to them.

Crooks tells Lennie in Of Mice and Men that his father owned which ten-acre California property?

A chicken ranch, with white hens and a strawberry patch, is the home he remembers sharing with two brothers. All three of them, he says, slept in the same bed.

George stopped playing jokes on Lennie in Of Mice and Men after telling him to jump into which river?

The Sacramento nearly killed him: Lennie obeyed at once although he could not swim a stroke. Hauled out, he was so grateful to George that he clean forgot who had told him to jump.

In Of Mice and Men, George says he and Lennie could quit and go up the American River to do what?

Pan for gold is his escape plan once the ranch starts to feel dangerous: maybe a couple of dollars a day, and they might hit a pocket. Lennie begs to leave at once, but George says they must stay.

What do the boss and his son Curley wear in Of Mice and Men to show that they are not labouring men?

High-heeled boots, with spurs in the boss's case, are worn to prove the wearer does not lift sacks for a living. The old swamper notes that the one hand everybody looks up to needs none.

Which crop does George promise to grow in Of Mice and Men so that Lennie can feed the animals he tends?

Alfalfa is Lennie's job in the dream: he will fill a sack with it and carry it to the cages. Crooks knows the picture well, because his own father's place had a patch of it too.

In the last lines of Of Mice and Men, what does the one man who understands take George to do?

Get a drink is all he offers, after telling George 'You hadda' and helping him to his feet. The two men left behind are baffled, and one wonders aloud what is eating them.

What is plucked from the river and swallowed head-first as the last chapter of Of Mice and Men opens?

A water snake glides up the pool with its head held like a periscope and is taken by a motionless hunter in the shallows, its tail still waving. A second one swims the same way just before Lennie arrives.

Which Gossip Girl star played Curley's wife in the 2014 Broadway revival of Of Mice and Men?

Leighton Meester, television's Blair Waldorf, made her Broadway debut in the part. The production was also the first Broadway show chosen for cinema broadcast by National Theatre Live.

Which Doctor Who star played George in BBC Radio 4's 2010 dramatisation of Of Mice and Men?

David Tennant took the part for the Classic Serial strand in the year his run as the Tenth Doctor ended. As a three-year-old he had told his parents he wanted to act because he loved that show.

Of Mice and Men opens on a Thursday evening and ends on the afternoon of which day?

Sunday afternoon brings the ending, so the whole story covers barely three days. George and Lennie reach the ranch on Friday morning, and a hand jokes that they came too early to dodge any work.

Which employment agency gives George and Lennie their work cards in Of Mice and Men?

Murray and Ready's handed over the cards after the two men had sat in a gutter on Howard Street watching a blackboard. George keeps both cards himself, not trusting Lennie to carry his own.

In Of Mice and Men, George reveals that he and Lennie were both born in which California town?

Auburn is where George got to know the woman who raised Lennie. When she died, Lennie simply came along with him to work, and the two grew used to each other.

Which young ranch hand in Of Mice and Men is sent to town to fetch the deputy sheriff after the killing?

Whit has no gun, so Curley sends him for Al Wilts, the deputy sheriff. Earlier he is the one proudly showing round a pulp magazine that printed a letter from a former workmate.

Which mountains catch the last sunlight in the opening and closing scenes of Of Mice and Men?

The Gabilans flame with evening light in chapter one and turn rosy again as Lennie waits alone at the end. George has him gaze up their darkening slopes while he listens to the old story.

Which actor, known for the National Lampoon's Vacation films, played Lennie in a 1981 TV film of Of Mice and Men?

Randy Quaid took the part in a television film, eight years after The Last Detail brought him an Oscar nomination. He went on to play the same comic in-law in four of the Vacation films.

Besides a tattered dictionary, which worn book does the stable hand Crooks own in Of Mice and Men?

California's civil code, in a mauled 1905 edition, suggests a man who has studied exactly what rights he has. He tells Lennie that nobody has any right in his room but him.

George and Lennie camp in Of Mice and Men beneath which trees with mottled, white, recumbent limbs?

Sycamores arch over the pool, and one giant has a low limb worn smooth by all the men who have sat on it beside the ash pile of old fires. The spot is a regular camp for tramps coming down off the highway.

The leads of the 1992 film of Of Mice and Men had played the roles in 1980 for which Chicago theatre?

Steppenwolf staged the play twelve years before the film reached cinemas. The film went on to compete at Cannes, where the audience gave its cast a standing ovation.

What is rung outside the bunkhouse in Of Mice and Men to call the ranch hands in to their dinner?

A triangle starts ringing slowly, then faster and faster until the beats blur into one sound. The newcomers are warned to hurry, because in a couple of minutes there will be nothing left to eat.

What did the ranch boss in Of Mice and Men bring into the bunkhouse for his men one Christmas?

A gallon of whisky came with the toast 'Drink hearty boys. Christmas comes but once a year.' The old swamper tells the story to show that the boss, for all his temper, is a pretty nice fellow.

What is nailed above each bunk in Of Mice and Men to give a ranch hand two shelves for his belongings?

An apple box, opening forward, holds each man's soap, razor, medicines and the Western magazines the hands 'love to read and scoff at and secretly believe'. Crooks has one over his own bunk as well.

At what kind of venue does Curley's wife say she first met Curley in Of Mice and Men?

A dance hall called the Riverside Dance Palace is where they met, and she tells Lennie something she has told nobody else: she does not like Curley, because he 'ain't a nice fella'.